[env-trinity] Natural Heritage Institute Hires Jerry Meral

[Dan Bacher]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/02/1266590/-Natural-Heritage- 
Institute-Hires-Jerry-Meral

http://www.fishsniffer.com/blogs/details/natural-heritage-institute- 
hires-jerry-meral/

  

Photo of Jerry Meral at BDCP meeting by Dan Bacher.



Natural Heritage Institute Hires Jerry Meral

by Dan Bacher

Many people have been speculating about where Jerry Meral, the  
controversial Deputy Secretary for Natural Resources who claimed "the  
Delta cannot be saved" in April 2013, would go to work after his  
retirement from state service on December 31.

The speculation is over. Meral, Governor Jerry Brown's former point  
man for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the  
peripheral tunnels, announced in an email and his new employer  
announced in a statement on December 31 that he will be now working  
for the Natural Heritage Institute (NHI), a pro twin tunnels  
"environmental" NGO that touts itself as "an early and strenuous  
proponent of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan."

Jerry Meral is joining an organization that not only has been an  
"early and strenuous" cheerleader of the BDCP, but has long  
championed water markets and water transfers that have privatized  
water and transformed a public trust asset, belonging to all  
citizens, into a "profit center to enrich special interests,"  
according to Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California  
Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA).

"NHI also developed the concept that became the Environmental Water  
Account, which enabled water speculators to sell public trust water  
back to the public at vast profit," said Jennings.

"As you may have heard, I am retiring from state service today,"  
Meral said in his email. "It has been a great pleasure working for  
Governor Brown on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan for the past three  
years. I am confident that the Plan will be successfully completed  
and implemented."

He said that starting January 1, "I will be representing the Natural  
Heritage Institute on California water matters, including BDCP."

The Natural Heritage Institute announced his new employment in a  
statement saying, "Dr. Meral will represent NHI on BDCP issues."

"In order to comply with state law regarding 'revolving door' issues,  
he will not be compensated for his time working on BDCP," according  
to the Institute. "He will also represent NHI on groundwater issues,  
transportation issues affecting water quality and habitat, and other  
California water matters. Dr. Meral previously served on the NHI  
Board of Directors, and represented NHI on the BDCP Steering  
Committee in 2010."

The complete NHI announcement regarding Meral's hiring is below:

"Dr. Jerry Meral, who directed the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP)  
for Governor Jerry Brown, has joined the Natural Heritage Institute  
as Director of the California Water Program.

Dr. Meral served as Deputy Director of the California Department of  
Water Resources from 1975 to 1983, Executive Director of the Planning  
and Conservation League from 1983 to 2010, and as Deputy Secretary of  
the California Natural Resources Agency from 2011 to 2013. In the  
latter capacity, he was in charge of the BDCP, a habitat conservation  
plan which includes the proposed twin water tunnels which would pass  
under the Delta from Sacramento to Tracy, as well as extensive  
habitat restoration.

Dr. Meral will represent NHI on BDCP issues. In order to comply with  
state law regarding 'revolving door' issues, he will not be  
compensated for his time working on BDCP. He will also represent NHI  
on groundwater issues, transportation issues affecting water quality  
and habitat, and other California water matters. Dr. Meral previously  
served on the NHI Board of Directors, and represented NHI on the BDCP  
Steering Committee in 2010.

NHI is a non-profit environmental conservation organization founded  
in 1989 with 25 years of experience in California water issues. NHI  
was represented on the BDCP Steering Committee for many years. NHI  
also works on river management issues throughout the world, with  
special focus on preserving and restoring natural functions on major  
river systems in Asia, Africa, and North and South America. The NHI  
Board of Directors includes well known scientists such as Dr. Peter  
Moyle, an expert on California fish.

The Natural Heritage Institute has been an early and strenuous  
proponent of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. NHI finds the evidence  
overwhelming that the delta cannot serve the dual functions of  
maintaining endangered species and water supply reliability without a  
massive habitat restoration program and improvements to the water  
diversion and conveyance infrastructure that can reduce the conflicts  
between these uses. BDCP is the only apparent vehicle for marshalling  
the billions of dollars of financial support from the State and  
Federal Water Contractors for the needed infrastructure improvements  
and for the public funding needed to undertake the restoration program.

The infrastructure improvements may also provide substantial benefits  
beyond the delta itself. NHI has worked for decades to illuminate  
opportunities for conjunctive use of surface and groundwater  
resources, many of which would rely on a more flexible system of  
moving water across the delta. When it becomes easier to move water  
to new off-stream storage facilities and empty groundwater basins in  
the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California, it will be possible  
to undertake stream enhancement north of the Delta, benefitting both  
the environment and water users of all regions

The principal fear of people in Northern California is that those in  
the Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley, and Southern California will take  
more water from the Delta than is good for the fish and the  
environment of the Delta can be alleviated through water management  
measures to implement the existing state policy to reduce reliance on  
the delta by the state and federal water supply agencies. Water  
exports from the Delta should not increase beyond the historic level  
of export.

Learn more about NHI at http://www.n-h-i.org."

A list of government agencies, NGOs and foundations is listed on the  
Institute's website as "partners, funders and clients" (it doesn't  
specify which are partners, funders and clients).

The foundations listed include the Ford Foundation, National Fish and  
Wildlife Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, Resources Legacy Fund,  
S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, Soros Foundation and The David and  
Lucile Packard Foundation, among others.

Background on Meral and the BDCP:

Meral became the focus of a huge controversy when he acknowledged on  
April 15, 2013 that "BDCP is not about, and has never been about  
saving the Delta.The Delta cannot be saved.'"

He made his controversial comments while speaking with Tom Stokely of  
the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) in a private conversation  
after a meeting with Northern California Indian Tribes, according to  
Restore the Delta's "Delta Flows" newsletter (http:// 
www.restorethedelta.org/or-is-it-the-point/)

After Meral made the revealing, candid comments, five Congressional  
Democrats - George Miller, Mike Thompson, Jerry McNerney, Doris  
Matsui and Anna Eshoo - called for Meral's immediate resignation.  
(http://www.fishsniffer.com/blogs/details/congressional-democrats- 
call-for-brown-administration-officials-resignation/)

"Meral’s statement, if accurately reported, suggests the Brown  
Administration intends to explicitly violate the established  
statutory co-equal goals of ecosystem restoration in the Bay-Delta  
and water reliability throughout the state," according to the  
Representatives' statement. "This fuels speculation that the  
Administration’s plan, if unchanged, will devastate the Sacramento- 
San Joaquin River Delta and the communities that rely on it, a  
concern that Northern California Lawmakers and other stakeholders  
have voiced throughout the process."

The widely-criticized plan proposes to construct three new intakes in  
the north Delta along the Sacramento River about 35 miles north of  
the existing South Delta pumping plants. Two 35-mile long twin  
tunnels would carry the water underground to the existing pumping  
plants that feed canals sttetching hundreds of miles to the south and  
west.

The release of the over 40,000 pages of public review draft of the  
Bay Delta Conservation Plan and its corresponding Draft Environmental  
Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) on December 13  
triggered a 120-day period for the gathering of public comments  
through April 14, 2014.

The construction of the twin tunnels will likely hasten the  
extinction of Sacramento River Chinook salmon, Central Valley  
steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish  
species, as well as threaten the steelhead and salmon populations on  
the Trinity and Klamath rivers.

For more information, go to: http://www.restorethedelta.org
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